科学美国人60秒 SSS 苗条基因让脂肪燃烧（在线收听）

This is Scientific American's 60-second Science. I'm Karen Hopkin.

这里是科学美国人——60秒科学。我是凯伦·霍普金。

Do you have skinny genes? And I'm not talking about the pants you wore in college but can't fit into anymore.

你有瘦基因吗？我不是说你上大学时穿刚好、但现在已经穿不进去的裤子。

No, skinny g-e-n-e-s genes are factors found in folks who are naturally svelte.

不是，瘦瘦的基因是在天生苗条的人体内发现的因素。

And researchers have just identified one that appears to tell the body's adipose tissue to burn more fat.

研究人员刚刚发现了一种似乎能告诉人体脂肪组织燃烧更多脂肪的基因。

"We all know these people who can eat whatever they want but never gain any weight."

“我们都认识那种想吃什么就吃什么但从不长肉的人。”

Josef Penninger is a geneticist at the University of British Columbia.

不列颠哥伦比亚大学的遗传学家约瑟夫·彭宁格说到。

He says that individuals who are effortlessly trim may hold the key to understanding obesity.

他表示，轻松保持苗条身材的人可能掌握着了解肥胖症的关键。

See, scientists interested in learning how we control our weight have traditionally focused on the things that make you fat, like diet or metabolism...

你看，喜欢研究体重控制的科学家一直关注饮食或新陈代谢等让人发胖的东西。

"But not really studied why people actually stay skinny. So we thought we'd just turn around the fields and study genetics of thinness."

“但他们并未真正研究人们为何能保持苗条。因此我们认为应该调转研究领域，去研究一下苗条的基因学。”

Penninger and his colleagues started out by searching a database maintained by a genome center in Estonia for its most slender registrants.

彭宁格和同事首先在爱沙尼亚的一个基因组中心维护的数据库中进行搜索，寻找其中最苗条的注册者。

And they weeded out people who were listed as having anorexia or other conditions that alter body fat.

他们剔除了那些被列为厌食症或其他改变身体脂肪的疾病的人。

Then they looked for genetic markers that track with these Skinny Petes.

之后他们寻找跟踪这些瘦子的基因标记。

One gene, in particular, caught their eye: ALK, or the gene for anaplastic lymphoma kinase,

其中一个基因尤为吸引他们的注意：ALK，即间变性淋巴瘤激酶基因，

is a stretch of DNA whose mutant form has been associated with human cancers.

这是突变形式与人类癌症相关的一段DNA。

"But its normal normal function had never been established."

“但其正常功能从未建立。”

So the scientists made mutant fruit flies and mutant mice...

因此，科学家制造了变异果蝇和变异老鼠……

"To really show that the gene associated with thinness in humans makes also flies and mice skinny. And that's exactly what we found."

“以证明与人类苗条有关的基因也能让果蝇和老鼠变瘦。这的确是我们所发现的现象。”

But the mutant gene doesn't cause the animals to eat less.

但这种变异基因不会让动物的食量变小。

"We found that ALK acts in our brains and what it does: it allows our body to burn more calories per same food we eat."

“我们发现ALK在我们大脑中起作用，让我们的身体在吃同样的食物时能燃烧更多卡路里。”

So the brain tells fat cells to burn more of the fat they have socked away.

因此，大脑告诉脂肪细胞燃烧更多储存脂肪。

"People, mice and, we believe, also flies stay skinny.

“我们相信，人类、老鼠和果蝇都能保持苗条。

So this mechanism is evolutionarily conserved from insects to humans and, we believe, opens up an entirely new field of thinness."

因此，从昆虫到人类，这一机制在进化上都保留了下来，我们相信，这将开辟全新的瘦身领域。”

The study is in the journal Cell.

这项研究发表在《细胞》期刊上。

There are already drugs that inhibit the cancer-causing form of ALK, which means that ALK is what scientists call a druggable target.

目前已有药物可以抑制ALK的致癌形式，这意味着ALK是科学家所称的“药物靶点”。

"So maybe one day we can indeed develop a pill which keeps us thin."

“因此，或许某一天我们真的可以研制出让我们保持苗条的药丸。”

Thanks for listening for Scientific American's 60-second Science. I'm Karen Hopkin.

谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是凯伦·霍普金。